This disclosure relates to care of animals and more particularly to a device for securing a feed or water bucket or pail to prevent it from being knocked off by a horse or other livestock.
Owners of horses and other similar animals often provide water or feed for the horse in a stall by providing a bucket for the horse to drink or eat from. A typical bucket has Placing the bucket on the ground is problematic, as the horse can easily knock the bucket over, leaving the animal without water or food until a person returns to refill the bucket. To address this, wall mounted holders have been devised, such as a hanging a bucket in the stall at a suitable height so the horse can easily drink/eat from the bucket, while preventing the bucket from being knocked over. One such solution uses a metal frame that mounts to the wall and provides a shelf to hold the bucket, and side wall bumpers and an upper level rim to make it hard for the horse to dislodge the bucket. Such holders require substantial support for mounting, and could injure the horse if the horse runs into the metal frame.
More economical is to provide a bracket to hang the bucket from the wall. However, it is typical for the horse to knock the bucket off the bracket.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,452,415 provides a upper hook to hang the bail of the bucket on, and a lower L shaped bracket that the edge of the bucket rests on for support. A sliding lock is lowered to engage the upper lip of the bucket, tightened by a wing nut to secure it. The bail of the bucket is held in the hook by a clasp member that allows the bail to slide in easily, but which is more difficult to unlock for removing the bail when it is time to change the bucket. A user must simultaneously use 2 hands to remove the bucket, one hand to move the clasp to an open position while the other hand moves the bail away from the hook before the clasp is allowed to close again.
U.S. Pat. No. 7,201,355 provides a locking feature to lock the bail in place, by providing a vertically movable rod that the bail is placed behind by lifting the rod, moving the bail into position back of the space that the rod occupied, and then lowering the rod. Thus the rod acts as both a hook to hold the bail and a lock to keep the horse from locking the bail loose. Using this device requires that 2 hands be used to mount the bucket, holding the bail in position against the back wall of the device with one hand while raising and lowering the rod with another hand to secure and lock the bail to the device. If the bucket is already full with water, this operation becomes more difficult as the bucket will be very heavy and harder to hold in position while operating the bail securement/lock rod.